Introduction to Econometrics

The book serves as an excellent introduction for both quantitative and qualitative thinkers. The former gain a broad view of the subject that lays down the foundation for more hardcore mathematical modelling. The mathematical proofs in the appendix give a more succinct explanation of the techniques employed.

Qualitative readers are able to comprehend the statistical models without having to struggle with endless formulas and boring mathematical proofs. The necessary skills that they require for writing/reading economic analysis are all explained in this book.

The slides give you a more concise treatment of the material and the study guide a more applied flavour of econometrics. These are all freely downloadable from the LSE economics website.

I personally found this book very helpful to proceed onto postgraduate economics.


Great book and easy to understand!   November 16, 2003
5 out of 7 found this review helpful

Whether or not you are an undergraduate at the LSE taking the introductory course on Econometrics, this book will be of interest to you if you'd like an introduction to Econometrics. This book takes you from a very basic understanding of statistics right through to how to deal with non-stationary time series. In between it covers topics such as simple and multiple regression, problems with multicollinearity and misspecifications (e.g. omitted variable bias), heteroscedasticity, proxy variables and instrumental variables, simultaenous equation bias and time series. The book also gives you a basic understanding of how to use logit and probit analysis when fitting binary choice models.
Dougherty has succeeded to make this book easy to understand for any undergraduate seeking knowledge in this topic. I find the detailed worked examples especially helpful for when it comes to solving practical problems for which the book mainly considers the use of Stata and Eview. The book also has a lot of excercises that help enhance the student's understanding of the topics. Additionally, Dougherty has compiled a course guide that among other things also goes through some of the exercises in the book. The course guide can be found on his webpage at the LSE in addition to all slide shows corresponding to the chapters of the book. Together with these additional course materials, the book makes the topics very easy to understand and cope with for students and should help them do well in their courses on Econometrics. This is really one of a kind and an extremely useful basis for further studies in Econometrics!!